That's not a bad surmise. The darknet markets aren't going away any time soon and will be the mainstay of Bitcoin until it hits the big time.

I have a theory that the web in general was massively helped by people wanting to watch pornography from the relative anonymity of their own home (no embarrassing renting of VHS/DVD's any more) and from there sprung the commerce driven web we have today.

So nefarious services will continue to help Bitcoin stay alive. I have no problem with people buying drugs from the privacy of their own home if they do their research and use them wisely/safely.

"The nature of Bitcoin is such that once version 0.1 was released, the
core design was set in stone for the rest of its lifetime." -- Satoshi

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What we're seeing looks like a thinly traded pink sheet stock followed by momentum investors. When the price happens to go up, buyers pile on and run the price up for a short period. The same thing happens in the other direction. Neither effect lasts very long. That's sort of the last 6-8 months of Bitcoin, since the China bubble popped.

That's why we need more legitimate online traders I think. The more that Bitcoin gets used for buying electronics, clothing, toys, gaming, utility bills etc from legitimate online sites the more widespread it becomes and the less power these whales have of pumping and dumping.

The price of Bitcoin stabilises and gives the average person confidence in it and the price should steadily, maybe even drastically rise. Just my thoughts on the matter of these whales spoiling it for the smaller bag holders who want to see a systematic financial change in the world.